Some weeks ago I wrote about a gift of an old wooden sea chest to the Brookings County Museum.
I inquired if someone could explain the wording on the 108-year-old chest’s still readable address.
I was pleased to hear from two compatriots of Holland, and this led to another unrelated story that I hadn’t expected.
So this epistle is sort of a “one thing leads to another” type of rambling.
I’ll get to that later.
The chest held the clothing and the few belongings of the widow Teuna Zellman Bakker and her four children. Teuna and Simon Bakker, a glass blower, were married in 1895 in Holland. Simon later died, leaving Teuna to raise John, Cornelius, Johan and Josie.
Dutch dairyman Pleun DenOtter delivered milk to Teuna and her children at their home in Holland. He was the brother of John DenOtter, who had emigrated from Holland to Volga and married Peetje Groeneveldt. She died in 1908.
Pleun told Teuna about his American brother’s loss and offered to sponsor her and her four children to travel to America so Teuna could marry his brother John. So Teuna and her children boarded the Dutch steamship Rijndam in 1910 bound for South Dakota.
Hence, the sea chest that Teuna had packed in Holland, and the arranged Volga marriage in September 1910. From that union, three children were added to the family: Nellie, Johnny and Anne. Lowell VandenBerg, Nellie’s son, donated his grandmother’s chest to the museum.
In the chest’s address were the words “Wed. T. Bakker, P.A. J.OTTER, Z. Dakota, N. Amerika.” I asked about that wording in an earlier column.
Within hours of publication I heard via e-mail from Donna, Texas, where Kathleen and John Holleman of Brookings had been reading the Register’s e-edition.
John came to the U.S. from Holland 23 years ago. He said the abbreviation “Wed.” means widow, and the “p.a.” means “per address.”
Days later I heard from Evert Van der Sluis of Brookings. He told me “N. Amerika” in the address is “Noord Amerika,” in Dutch. “Z. Dakota” in the address is “Zuid Dakota” in Dutch.
And then one thing led to another.
Mr. Van der Sluis sent me a copy of a Dutch newspaper article about two B-17 U.S. bombers that had crashed in World War II on this family’s Friesland farm.
The American bombers were returning from a raid on Bremen, Germany. All crew members of both aircraft died. Their remains were buried in a local church cemetery.
Evert mentioned that most of the crew members came from Minnesota and South Dakota and were in the 337th Bomb Squadron, 96th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force England.
One of the pilots was Lt. Maynard Freemole from South Dakota.
I remembered when I was in junior high that a high school football player named Freemole from Belle Fourche raised cane with my beloved Rapid City Cobblers.
Perhaps Lt. Freemole who died in the crash was that player, or a brother.
I checked. But that Belle Fourche player was Don Freemole, not Maynard.
Maynard, the future B-17 pilot, was born near, played football for and graduated from Edgemont, South Dakota.
I can’t read the B-17 story in the Dutch newspaper, but I can read the names of the 22 deceased young airmen in that story. If anyone wishes more information, let me know.
Isn’t it interesting how one thing so often leads to another?
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